Katherine watched in horror out of the corner of her eyes as the bullet ripped through Quinn's chest, throwing him back violently against a nearby concrete wall. She knew a shot to the heart when she saw one and she knew, as well as anyone, that it meant instant death.
Her heart exploded in pain and grief. She closed her eyes and offered a silent prayer to the Old One's for his soul then took a deep breath, resolved herself, and turned her head slowly to face the hunter.
His eyes were cold, like the silver he used to make his deadly bullets, and Katherine knew that she would probably soon be dead. The bullet wounds in her shoulder and legs would regenerate quickly, in a matter of minutes, if given the time, but time was a commodity she didn't have.
She knew it was pointless but every cell in her body demanded that she not give up even if her soul would have welcomed it. Instinct overtook her. She knew that fighting back wasn't going to work as an option if she wanted to live, so she chose the only other option, flight. Katherine swallowed her pride, and her loyalty to Quinn, and ran.
She ignored the gripping pain that seared through her body as she willed her limbs to cooperate. There was no hope of changing until she could rid her body of the bullets and find a safe location. Katherine could hear the fall of the hunter's boots as he raced after her through what seemed like an endless maze of dark alleys. As she ran Katherine could feel her body expunging the silver even as it burned in her blood, pushing it out of her muscles and simultaneously healing itself. She felt stronger every moment and prayed for the possibility that she would get the chance to heal completely.
Katherine saw her hands fly out in front of her and gaped at them, wondering why she was falling to the ground when escape was so near. Her brain felt fuzzy and confused, and Katherine urged herself to get back up and run. Straining to understand her own actions, Katherine looked down at the crumpled body that she barely recognized as her own, and started to cry.
She was bleeding from over ten different wounds, newly inflicted, by the startlingly large semi-automatic the hunter now held above her prone body. Katherine's system couldn't deal with that much silver, and it reacted as if to an allergen, by shutting down and slowing to conserve energy. Katherine closed her eyes, tried to clear her mind, and push the pain aside. She was the daughter of the Alpha, a warrior to be reckoned with. She refused to die with tears on her face.
Katherine pushed with all of her strength and stumbled to her feet before the hunter. Her eyes were no longer confused or pleading for her life. They were hard and cold, just like his, and just like him, she stood proudly waiting for the inevitable. Katherine heard a gun cock and she closed her eyes.
The sound of the gun firing filled the alleyway, ricocheting off the concrete walls and echoing deafeningly in Katherine's sensitive ears. Katherine felt the bullet rip through her chest and into her pounding heart. She collapsed and waited for the darkness to wash over her and the end to come.
She lay on the cold concrete and let her eyes close. Visions of her family filled her head with bittersweet memories and she couldn't stop the tears that came. She felt the silver of the bullets burn inside her, overwhelming her and she released herself from the pain.
As she slipped into unconsciousness, she heard the roar of a second gunshot echo dimly behind her accompanied by a human scream of pain. With her last ounce of strength, she forced open her eyes just wide enough to see the Hunter's body slide to the ground just behind Quinn whose eyes were staring at her in relief and utter disbelief.
With little effort, he picked her up and smiled down at her. Sleep now, Mia, he whispered inside her mind, you've been brave enough for one day. Sleep.
She smiled and was content in the knowledge that she and Quinn would be together forever in the life that comes after death.
♀♀♀
The morning light shone through a window casting reflections of blue and pink through a tiny prism that hung suspended from the pane. The dancing lights fell across Katherine's face and gently woke her. Her mouth felt like it was full of cotton, dry and dusty, but her body felt fine. Yawning, she pushed herself up in bed and looked around. The room was painted a light blue and decorated with beautiful landscapes in print. She didn't recognize any item she saw but the area smelled and felt like Quinn.
Katherine's back stiffened. Quinn.
She scrambled out of bed, fighting against the sheets that threatened to hold her back. Her mind exploded with images of their encounter with the hunter. Memory fragments bombarded her in random sequences and her head began to ache just behind her temples.
She leaned against the bedpost and sagged to the floor, unable to hold her body upright. In a heap on the floor, she breathed, fighting hyperventilation, and forced the images to slow down and form a pattern.
The sound of her own heart, now beating wildly, was all she could hear. Her head thrummed to her pulse, refusing to quiet enough for her to think clearly. There was just too much information filling her mind.
She inhaled deeply and lowered her head to her chest, trying to relax her body and mind as she'd been taught by Sensei after Sensei in more than one martial arts class.
It took all of her concentration, but after a few minutes the pain in her head cleared and she began to think clearly. She opened herself back up to the images and the thoughts, putting them in context so that they made sense.
She pieced together her memory and watched in horror as her mind's eye showed a bullet tearing through Quinn's chest. She stopped, unable to continue as her body once again filled with unbelievable pain, this time from the hole that bore its way into her chest.
She gasped for air and clutched at her shirt, trying somehow to grab her heart and ease the swelling. It felt as though her chest would break open and spill her life's blood.
Tears streamed from her eyes but she didn't feel them. She didn't understand how she wasn't dying from the pain coursing through her body and mind. It didn't seem possible that one person could feel this much pain and still live.
Then she understood. She was dead.
The certainty of that thought filled her and momentarily pushed aside her grief. She breathed in and out several times and each time her chest felt as though it were being squat with a compressor.
Why was she feeling pain if she was dead?
Another image flashed before her, the hunter aiming his gun at her chest and pulling the trigger. The report had been deafening and the blaze of the silver as it smashed into her heart had felt like death.
The bullet had hit her heart. She had to be dead.
But if she was dead then why did everything hurt? And why did she have another memory of Quinn's face filling her line of sight, of his speaking to her and picking her up before everything went dark?
What the hell was going on?
She focused her memory on Quinn and replayed the scene in her mind. She remembered the moment she'd seen the silver slug enter Quinn's chest and the blood that had poured from the gaping wound. There was no way any wolf could recover from a shot like that; direct entry to the heart...unless it hadn't been a direct shot to the heart.
Unless she'd been delusional from her own wounds and she'd imagined that the bullet had hit Quinn's heart.
That was it, she'd been filled with silver, her body burning and dying. There was no way that she would have been completely lucid in that moment. The memory of being shot in the heart and watching Quinn be shot in the heart were fabrications of her traumatized mind.
Yes, she thought, her mind grasping onto this truth with certainty that she was right. The vise grip that the thought of Quinn's death had on her chest loosened and she felt a rush of adrenaline and lust for life fill her.
Some miracle had saved them from the hunter's bullets. He must have missed his mark and hit beside Quinn's heart, not in it. She must have been hallucinating from blood loss.
Quinn was alive!
The empty cavity that had moved into her chest just moments before now exploded with a new feeling. Her heart beat with absolute joy, all traces of the grief abandoned.
She climbed to her feet and ran from the room without a thought for her nudity. She inhaled deeply and, although Quinn's scent was everywhere, she caught a fresh trace. Darting towards the kitchen she stopped just short of smacking into a grinning Quinn who just stood there looking at her with a glass of orange juice in one hand and a plate of bacon, eggs, ham and everything else that smelled of breakfast and heaven in the other.
"I thought you were dead!" Katherine wrapped her arms around his giant chest and buried her face into his shoulder. She let herself breath deep of his scent and she silently pressed her lips against his heart, her lips curving up against his shirt.
Quinn gazed down at her and brushed his lips against her forehead, "No," he murmured quietly looking down at her, "he missed my heart." Quinn's eyes shifted away momentarily from Katherine's as he whispered, "Thank the Old Ones for that."
♀♀♀
They spent the day together, constantly within easy distance of one another as if both were afraid to let the other out of their sight.
Quinn had brought her back to the small apartment that he had leased upon arriving in Montreal. The smell of him throughout the rooms calmed Katherine's soul. Although he had spent little time there, there was a certain maleness that he brought to the apartment that she was certain other men would be unable to execute.
By the time the sun went down she was again feeling washed out and exhausted. The emotional overhaul of the day was too potent to ignore. She'd called her father to check in and find out if there was any good news to share about Rachel. The news had been good.
Rachel had been found, a little bloody and beaten but no worse for wear and she and Anthony were presently wrapped in each other's arms while Sylvie showered her son and future daughter-in-law with food and drink. It looked as though she and Quinn's interruption had saved Rachel from the hunter's plans.
Katherine slid into bed around 8:00 p.m. and instantly drifted off to sleep with Quinn scratching her back patiently and affectionately.
It was late when Katherine started awake violently. She lay shivering in sweat soaked sheets until her heartbeat returned to normal. She groped around next to her for Quinn's body but the area was cold as though he'd been up for a while or hadn't come to bed at all. She sat in the dark, heart beating wildly.
The darkness of night closed around her and offered her a solace that calmed her mind enough for her to recall her dream. Never one to dream much in the first place Katherine tried to grasp her fleeting nightmare and felt it slip further out of reach the harder she tried.
Bits and pieces floated to the surface of her memory and Katherine closed her eyes against the images bombarding her again, images of Quinn flying back against that wall. She couldn't see the entire picture clearly, but Katherine couldn't get the image of Quinn's body being violated, desecrated with unholy silver, out of her head. Katherine closed her eyes and let the tears escape one by one until her face was damp and traced in salty rivulets. She blinked back her tears and opened her eyes. It wasn't safe anymore to close them. Her mind was determined to betray her sensibilities and force her to relive the atrocity of watching what she had believed to be her soul mate's violent murder.
Steeling herself, Katherine forced her body to relax and settle back against her pillows. She breathed deeply and closed her eyes, embracing the inevitable. A moment passed and Katherine remained still, closing off her mind to anything but the memory. She refused to be haunted, even by her own mind. She would confront this, and get past it. After all, Quinn hadn't died. She wasn't alone.
A flash of sound ricocheted through Katherine's mind, heavy boots falling on concrete. She breathed through the terror that filled her unconsciously and let the impressions fill her, take her away. Katherine could see the alley clearly now, dark shadows and an extreme lack of color, of vitality.
Ragged breathing and shouts. A thunderous heartbeat that encompassed everything.
Katherine focused her thoughts on Quinn and tried to ignore the emotions that she had felt that night. She needed to see it. She needed to watch Quinn die again to know that he was truly still alive. She needed to work through her fears.
Katherine saw it then; saw Quinn's face through the shadows of memory just as the bullet tore through his chest.
She dragged in a painful breath as the picture clarified in her memory, allowing her to see. Katherine gazed inwardly at the man she loved and mentally locked her eyes with his. His eyes, his beautiful eyes, were so wide with wonder and... Katherine froze and tried to recall the image more clearly.
His eyes.
She recalled Quinn's eyes as the bullet ripped through his chest. There had been a wonder, yes, absolutely. But the fear that Katherine would have expected at the prospect of certain death was absent as if Quinn feared nothing, not even death itself. Katherine's stomach clenched ferociously and she felt an overwhelming urge to throw up.
Swallowing deeply and breathing in the cool night air Katherine reasoned with herself that any true warrior would face death with such ambivalence. Death was just another adventure wasn't it?
Katherine pushed back the sheets from around her body and stood, ignoring the lamp by the bedside table. Her eyes adjusted easily to the darkness and she felt more at home, at peace, and able to think in the cool of the night. She walked to the window and stood there silently, taking in the scenery, the lights of the city, and tried not to ask herself the one question she wanted most to ask.
Why hadn't he feared being taken away from her?
Guilt washed over her but it didn't remove the question burning through her mind. She rested her forehead against the cool window pane and tried to imagine what Quinn had been thinking, feeling, in that moment. She swallowed her pride and overwhelming desire to be the most important part of Quinn's life and acknowledged that in those chaotic moments she too had thought of her own death. Of course, she had felt the pain of believing Quinn to be dead, but her own survival instinct had taken over almost immediately and she had run because she had needed to run. Far be it from her to deny Quinn the same instinctual defenses that she herself had experienced.
Katherine was much too intelligent and much too insightful to ignore the implications of natural instinct. Her kind had survived as long as they had by embracing their instincts, well some of their instincts at least.
Still, it bothered her that Quinn had shown so little reaction to such an incredibly close call. Here she was, awake at all hours of the night, raking her mind over and over for details while he was off God knows where. The injustice and inequality of the moment filled her temporarily with spite, and despite the pettiness of the emotion, Katherine felt better, more like herself.
She wasn't used to having a mate, one wolf to come home to, so to speak. It was unsettling at times and definitely made her feel like less of a warrior and more of a domesticated puppy. Katherine frowned deeply and pouted, then stopped and laughed aloud. She had just pouted! Never in her life as an adult wolf had she, Katherine LaFlamme, pouted for any man. Except her dad, and that didn't count. This was getting ridiculous. Katherine refused to lose her identity for any man, whether she loved him or not. Making a silent promise to herself to return to normal, Katherine turned from the window and climbed back into her waiting bed, her eyes closing as her head hit the pillow. She fell immediately back into the same dream.
She awoke screaming violently. Her ragged voice tore through the solitude of the night as she leaped up in her bed balancing on her hands and knees while she tried to regain her breathing. The echo ricocheted off the walls as she once again relieved that dreaded moment.
His heart.
Her heart.
Katherine's eyes refused to do anything but gape into the dark abyss of her room. The bullet had hit his heart, she was sure of it. She had seen it. She had never been surer of anything in her life. He should be dead.
She put her hand to her chest and felt her heart beating beneath it. She couldn't wrap her mind around it but she knew that she, too, had been shot at close range. She could still feel the bullet exploding into her body and the fire that chased it. She should be dead.
This time, she couldn't find it within herself to question the images that filled her mind. She knew without a doubt that she had watched first Quinn then herself be shot through the heart by the hunter.
How the hell were they both still alive?